Student Symposium

Student Symposium

The iConference Student Symposium is an opportunity for undergraduate and master’s students to present their research in a friendly setting of peers and invited senior researchers. Students will receive feedback on their work and they will have a chance to network with other conference participants and faculty members. Participants must apply and be accepted in order to take part.

Please note that iConference 2026 will have a virtual and a physical component, but the Student Symposium will only be held physically onsite in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK!

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Guidelines

During the iConference 2026, participation in the Student Symposium will be restricted to those students who have applied and been accepted; the symposium will not be open to observers.

All undergraduate and master’s students are invited to submit applications to the Student Symposium. Affiliation with a member-iSchool is not required — applications from students of any educational institution will be considered. The session will consist of short student presentations followed by discussions and interactions. All submission must be in English.

The Student Symposium session will take place onsite in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Students from all regions are welcome to join the session on-site.

Conditions: Please note that accepted students must register during the Early Bird registration period to present at the Student Symposium at iConference 2026. The organizers reserve the right to withdraw the acceptance if these conditions are not met.

Application

Application materials must be submitted as a single pdf document to our ConfTool submission site by 20 October 2025. All materials must be in English, and include the following sections:

Section 1: A brief letter of application (250 words maximum) including name, education level, department, and specifics on your field of study and what excites you about it. In other words, why are you studying what you are studying.

Section 2: An abstract of up to 250 words to describe your planned presentation. In this outline, you will introduce the theme of your talk, contextualize the theme in relevant research and give details on your method, analysis and findings (if relevant). The presentation may be on completed research or research-in-progress.

Student contributions may be based on undergraduate and master's projects or similar. Students may also join forces and collaborate on a submission.

Submission Portal Conftool

Participation

In order to promote extended interaction among conference attendees and students, those accepted for the Student Symposia will be expected to meet the following obligations after they have been accepted:

Register for the iConference during the early-bird period, and participate throughout the entire iConference.

Prepare a brief presentation to be made during the event.

Prepare questions you would like to ask of Student Symposium mentors, either formally in the panel or informally during the day.

More detail on participation will be provided in the acceptance notifications.